11 THE CAROLINA TIMES
SAT., DECEMBER 20.1380
BEARAfTTOF
THE NEW
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M?4 $?v awakened to
JUSTICE BY SOUND OF SONGSm
AND SERMONS. J
SPEECHES AND PEACEFUL
DEMONSTRATIONS. BUT THE NOISE-
LESS SECRET VOTE. U1LL A
THUNDER FORTH A HUNDRED
WES MORE LOUDLY.'
ur. t.
BETTER
Hk'ALTu
fROGRAMS
Affirmative Action:
Stopping Violence Against Blacks
Time To See With New Eyes
The political maneuverings of
both the outgoing Democrats and
the incoming Republicans clearly
suggest further erosion of the
hard-won gains of minority
Americans. They propose putting
the fox back in the henhouse to
guard the chickens that is, put
ting federal programs back in the
hands of the states God for
bid! They're apparently tired of
the civil rights laws already and
are trying to figure out ways to
defuse those laws without stirring
up social protest. Threatened are
voting rights, affirmative action,
busing to achieve desegregation,
federal aid to cities, legal aid for
the poor and others.
Perhaps we've wanted to
believe that those who deprive us
of our human rights would
somehow ;jchangev,i,,.wj v,cpuJ4
make bur : case on moflamii?
Afro-Americans have been strug
gling for freedom and justice in
this country with an "eyes and see
not" approach. We've had to
claw, tooth and nail, for every
forward step. We have refused to
see that America feels no sense of
moral responsibility toward us.
The only time this government
allows yes, "allows" Afro
Americans a little advancement is
when it needs warm bodies to pull
it out of some mess or when
world pressure is brought to bear.
Check the history books, read
with eyes wide open and see bet
ween the lines. Its there.
So, if we know that our govern
ment does not want us to be free,
why do we keep on wasting our
energies appealing to such an
amoral, unjust and corrupt op
pressor who is just as determined
to keep us in bondage as we are to
be free.
Its time for us to see with new
eyes while we sing a new song.
Let us put our appeals before
the world. Why keep worrying
and trying to second guess what
Ronald Reagan's administration
or any other for that matter
is going to do that will hurt or
help "black America" when we
can use that energy to put our
case before the world where we
are a part of the majority. Lets
hold in abeyance' that "civil
rights" tune and work.with
JJmm- rfetaC jnsteadWkh
to this government With
"human rights", we can put our
case before the world the
United Nations.
In America, we're a minority,
vbut in the world, blacks, browns,
reds and yellows are the majority.
Since "Uncle Sam" gives only
lip-service to moral appeals and
responds only to power, then lets
use the power of the world's four-to-one
majority of which we are
members.
Who knows but what Afro
Americans are not here to save
America from herself.
Let him who has eyes to see
see.
If anything is becoming clear nowadays, it
is that violence against blacks is on the rise
and is susceptible to increasing now that a
president supported by Birch-ites and
Klansmen of all stripes has been elected. In
deed, the latest joke sweeping Washington is
that the only black to be appointed by
Reagan will be Shirley Temple Black.
The usually moderate Ben Hooks of the
NAACP, who is a Republican, has spoken in
the New York Times of "hysteria" and mass
buying of guns in the black community. It is
bitterly true that more seem to be concerned
with who shot "J.R." than who shot Vernon
Jordan.
Some have criticized Hooks for making
intemperate remarks but it is not difficult to
see why he would be moved. For the fact is
unavoidable that by a number of objective
measures, the thrust of his concern can be
substantiated.
Los Angeles, for example, has been com
pared by some to "Rhodesia with those
pictures of housewives getting target practice
at swimming pools during the civil war." In
1979, Los Angeles posted 2.8 homicides per
thousand residents, to lead the nation; it also
leads in the rate of rapes and assaults. Watts
recalls the fatal shooting of black mother
Eula Love in a minor dispute over a utility
bill.
A new twist in the stepped-up violence
against blacks is the increase in jattacks
against black youth. Many are familiarwith
the murders of youth in Atlanta. But less
publicized is the rise of the Klan Youth
Corps, which as CBS-TV has reported,
operates camps in Alabama for little racists.
And recently it was reported that instruction
was being given to Boy Scouts and Civil Air
Patrol cadets on the art of "how to strangle
people and fire guns." Their teacher avers,
"I am proud to be a member of the Ku Klux
Klan.
Thus, it is not altogether surprising that in
San Anselmo, California's predominantly
white Drake High School, nine members of
the football team were suspended recently
for shouting pro-KKK slogans at a game; or
how in Durham, North Carolina's Northern
High School a football game was disrupted
with a cross-burning or how black elemen
tary students at Brown Alternative School in
Jackson, Mississippi were sprayed with tear
gas by white classmates said to be members
of the "Junior KKK."
Exacerbating the situation is the lax
punishment dished out to those young
criminals who are caught. Two seventeen
year old white youths burned a cross on the
lawn of a black postal worker in Long
Island, New York. The punishment handed
out by the court included making three
public appearances to condemn racial van
dalism. Though convicted in December
1979, as of October 1980, they had not com
plied and apparently will not be brought to
book.
But unsettling as the. situation involving
violence and black youth, also worth wat
ching is the linking of the KKK, the police
and. military. In Harrisburg, Pa., there, have
been substantial allegations concerning
members of the police force "wearing white
supremacy medallions with their uniforms"
and participating in the local Klavern. The
Boy Scouts being trained in Houston by the
KKK were members of Post 2125, sponsored
by the Marine Corps Reserve at Ellington
Air Force Base.
A new wrinkle in the wave of violence
against blacks is the issue of police retalia
tion. For instance, in New Orleans on
November 8, a policeman working alone was
found shot through the neck and bleeding to
death in a ditch in the predominantly black
Algiers section. In rapid succession four
blacks were killed by police, one in his
bedroom. Fortunately, federal, state, and
local agencies, plus civil rights groups are in
vestigating. Other examples have been cited
throughout the country.
Once again, after the clarion call is sound
ed the question becomes, "what is to be
done"? The Center for Consitutional Rights
(CCR), a sponsor of the Affirmative Action
Coordinating Center (AACC), has come up
with one novel approach that black and pro
gressive lawyers might want to emulate.
CCR has filed private lawsuits against the
KKK claiming that Klansmen have conspired
to deprive blacks of their civil rights in viola
tion of the so-called Ku Klux Klan Act of
1871. The suits demand money damages and
seek to win injunctions against further Klan
violence and intimidation. The entire
organization can be found in contempt if it
could be shown that violence occurred
within the court's jurisdiction.
On November 3, the Southern Poverty
Law Center in Alabama filed a class action
in federal court in Birmingham, Alabama.
The suit, The People's Association of
Decatur v. The Invisible Empire, Knights of
the Ku Klux Klan, 80-C-14498, asks for in
junctive relief and one million dollars in
damages for each of am undetermined
number of plaintiffs.
In Chattanooga, CCR has been working
on Crumsey v. The Justice Knights of the Ku
Klux Klan, 1-80-287.
Both Birmingham and Chattanooga have
been the scene of KKK violence, with black
women being slaughtered in the streets in the
latter town.
The suits must be backed with vigorous
mass actions if they are to succeed. Mar
ching must continue in Wrightsville,
Georgia, Decatur, Alabama, and all the rest.
Letters to the Editor of the local newspapers
must continue. Above all, the trend of black
political independence, e.g., the recent for
mation of the new black party in
Philadelphia must be continued.
To Be Equal
Open Season On Civil Rights
By Vernon E. Jordan, Jr
Things You Should Know
The lame-duck Congress passed an
amendment to an appropriations bill bann
ing Justice Department participation in bus
ing suits, signaling an open hunting season
on civil rights laws.
Not that this particular amendment is so
through u Congress iri- theast.l But this
one would effectively take the executive
branch out of the business of remedying un
constitutional school segregation.
It would even bar the Justice Department
from enforcing court busing orders,
something the courts will probably find un
constitutional. Congress' attempt to hand
cuff busing is a direct interference with the
executive branch's sworn duty to enforce the
laws of the land.
Ironically, it came at a time that yet
another study was published documenting
busing's beneficial effects. Researchers at
Catholic University's Center for National
Policy Review found that busing programs
in metropolitan areas encouraged housing
desegregation.
They noticed a decline in residential
segregation patterns in cities with area-wide
desegregation, and concluded that further
integration of housing would ultimately'
mean busing could be discontinued since the'
schools would be integrated without it.
The researchers found that when only the
center city was subjected to busing orders,
"white flight" to the suburbs was encourag
ed. But when the entire metro area was sub
ject to desegregation, reluctant whites could
not flee and the pattern was reversed.
The lesson has been clear all along that
busing and other, more often used means of
desegregatuirKorTi local
authorities '4ad tftizm'mjpilyith in to
make it work. The long-term meaning of
Congress' action is that communities
resisting desegregation can expect to be
rewarded, while those who comply with the
law will have to struggle through on their
own.
But busing is only one of the civil rights
measures threatened. Pressure is building in
Congress to undercut federal affirmative ac
tion enforcement. Senator Strom Thur
mond, the 1948 Dixiecrat candidate for
President and now slated to be the new
Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Commit
tee, has said he wants to scuttle the Voting
Rights Act.
Legal aid for the poor is high on the Con
gressional hit list, tocr. Threats have been
made to cut off all federal aid to cities that
have rent control laws. And several Con
gressmen are having their staffs work up
constitutional amendments that would bury
busing, affirmative action, abortion, separa
tion of church and state, and other rights
and programs we too often take for granted.
Sometimes, as in busing, the attackers
claim to speak for the majority. But they
reveal a fundamental flaw in their argument
the essence of a democracy is protection
of minority rights, not the unbridled trampl
ing of those rights by an intolerant majority.
It would be a mistake to overreact to the
threats to civil rights laws. Many of those
proposals will never see the light of day, and
many don't stand a chance, even in the in
coming Congress.
But it would be more of a mistake to be
complacent about them. There is a clear and
present danger that some of the rights and
programs that survived the negativism of the
1970s will come under even stronger attack
in the 1980s.
It is imperative for progressive coalitions
to be rebuilt and strengthened, and for
strategies to be devised that will protect en
dangered rights. A vital part of that effort
will have to be a campaign to rekindle the
spark of passion in the disheartened civil
rights camp.
As Senator Lowell Weicker, who fought a
lonely campaign against the anti-busing
amendments, said: "My disappointment lies
with those who have had a traditional com
mitment to civil rights. . . .their voices are no
longer heard. Civil rights has no more
political sex appeal they do not fight for
what they believe in . "
essie
RfllTH
CA. 1896-1 937
Born In Chattanoog, Ten
nasseo. There Is little known
cf her early childhood, later
she was cared for by the other
great blues singer, Ma Raineyl
She became a well-paid star of
ffegro VaudvIHe Her first
record scld over two million
cc?::s! After an automobile crash in Mississippi, she had to
to taken all ths way to Memphis, Tennessee in search of a
! wiwtf iiipiuii, 19 uieu U9 a ivauit vi mo UVWf
' Continental Features
'mini;
Fear Reagan Shift On Africa Policy
By Lawrence Muhammad
A recent attempt by Reagan forces in the
government to influence foreign strategy on
Africa is a bad omen if it is a model for a
formalized Republican policy. Though
Democrats defeated the legislative effort, it
would have put the United States squarely
on the side of racist South Africa, and
jeopardized a delicate United Nations pro
posal in the works to end minority white rule
in that country through democratic elec
tions. Led by Republican Senator Jesse Helms
from North Carolina, Reagan supporters
tried to override a law banning military aid
to Angolans rebelling against their govern
ment. During the campaign, President-elect
Rona Reagan said he favored military aid
to Jonas Savimbi, the South Africa-backed
insurgent who seeks to overthrow the present
Angolan regime.
' Though Angolan President Jose Eduardo
dos Santos is backed by the Russians, he has
opened his country to American oil interests,
and perhaps more importantly, exercises an
influence over black guerrillas fighting
South. Africa that is favorable to the UN
proposal for a negotiated settlement.
The move by lawmakers supportive of
Reagan, many experts on Africa fear, could
torpedo the Angolan arrangement,, and fur
ther incline the South Africans to balk on
UN negotiations.
There is widespread fear that their,
legislative action may set (he pattern for the
Reagan Administration's policy, which
could mark a sad return to the United States'
approach to Africa prior to the initiatives of
Jimmy Carter.
With the point man UN Ambassador An
drew Young, who had the credibility of
j African blood, the Carter Administration
sought to aid the forces of change on the
continent and bury perceptions of the U.S.
as a white country naturally allied through
race with apartheid regimes, and one which
was eager to rape the continent of mineral
wealth and cynically viewed Africa as a
staging-ground for counter-moves against
Russia. i
And for most of its four year term, the
Carter Administration avoided the
strategems of the Cold War yearsj and
sought instead negotiated settlements to
African disputes with a policy based on ma
jority rule through democratic elections.
I These initiatives resulted in the election of
Robert Mubage as Prime Minister of Zim
babwe, and the diplomatic opening in the
South African conflict. .
But" there was always opposition from
Congressional hawks, and by the end of
1979, the Carter Administration wilted
under pressure and Andrew Young was forc
ed to resign. In areas where there wa&.Uttl
interest, conservatives pressured the Ad-1
ministration to show force in reaction to
Russia. Military hardware was shipped to
Morocco, which was in a land dispute with
the leftist Algerians over the Spanish Sahara.
And Somalia, in a territorial feud with
Soviet-backed Ethiopia over, its Ogaden
; region, was . granted aid and the U.S.
established bases there.
; The damage to U.S.-Africa relations, par
, ticularly in the Moroccan case, . resulted
because that country's posture on the Sahara
had alienated most of the progressive
.African states, including Nigeria, on whom
America depends heavily for oi. And. U.$.
(Continued On Page 15)
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